Page 9 of Wrong Number, Right Mountain Man
Me: Sunny.
Sunny: Beck?
Me: You're killing me here.
Sunny: Good killing or bad killing?
Me: The kind that makes me want to drive down this mountain and find out if you taste as sweet as you sound.
The three dots appear immediately, then disappear. Appear again. Disappear. When her response comes, it is just one word.
Sunny: When?
Everything changes. We both know this has moved beyond friendly texting and into something neither of us expected. Something that feels real despite the distance and the circumstances and the fact that we are essentially strangers.
Something that scares me almost as much as it excites me.
Me: Soon.
Sunny: Promise?
Me: Promise.
I stare at the phone long after she says goodnight, wondering what the hell I’m doing and whether I’m about to make the best or worst decision of my life.
Rex settles beside my chair with a heavy sigh, and I scratch behind his ears.
"What do you think, boy? Ready for some company?"
His tail thumps once against the floor, which I’m choosing to interpret as approval.
Because ready or not, everything is about to change.
Chapter 5
Sunny
"You'renotdatinghim,"Maya says, stabbing her fork into a cucumber. "Dating requires seeing each other's faces at least once."
The bistro around us smells like coffee and pretentious vegan pastries. Maya's been my best friend since college, but right now her practicality stings.
"We talk every day." My phone sits facedown on the table, but every nerve in my body stays aware of its presence. Last night, Beck texted a photo of Rex sleeping by the fire. The fourteenth time looking at it still made my chest warm. "Beck gets me in ways Josh never did."
"A month ago you sent this man your boobs by accident, and now you're planning your mountain wedding." Maya sipsher green juice. Unlike me, she has her life together. She has an impressive marketing job, an organized apartment, and houseplants that don't die. "Classic rebound behavior."
"This isn't a rebound," the protest comes out sharper than intended, though doubt creeps in. My dating track record resembles a demolition derby. "And we've talked on the phone."
"Twice," Maya counts on her fingers. "Two conversations with a stranger versus two years with Josh."
His name still causes a twinge, but it's duller now. The social media post announcing his engagement sits undeleted in my feed, a scab that gets picked at during masochistic moments.
"Beck hears me." My fingers shred the napkin's edge. "Yesterday the bakery mixer broke, and frosting sixty cupcakes by hand made my fingers cramp. My boss screamed about deadlines while Beck asked how my hands felt, not whether the cupcakes got done."
"Josh would've asked about the cupcakes," Maya concedes.
"Josh would've explained how the mixer should've been fixed." The memory surfaces of him "helpfully" critiquing my technique after spending hours on a birthday cake. "Beck just sent a photo of his hands with the caption 'lending you these.'"
My phone buzzes. Maya's eyebrow raises as my entire body tenses.
